If you're familiar with any aspect of Caribbean cuisine, then it will almost certainly be jerk. Let's face it: spicy, crisply barbecued chicken or pork are an easier sell for most of us than hard food or stew peas. Native to Jamaica, the tradition began with the indigenous Taíno people who would cook their meat over fires made from the aromatic wood of the island's allspice trees – still the only way, devotees claim, to get that really authentic flavour (no one seems to import it the UK, so I'll have to take their word for it).

Jerk's distinctive seasoning – hot peppers, sweet allspice berries, thyme and ginger – however, is credited to the African slaves brought to the island by its Spanish and British colonisers, who also introduced the cooking pits which were traditionally used for jerk until the advent of the modern oil drum. (The name, apparently, is the Spanish version of an Andean dialect word for dried meat, ch'arki – presumably because the original jerk would have been smoked to preserve it.)

Today, you'll find jerk huts all over Jamaica – indeed, you'll probably smell them before you leave the airport – but, if you're not hopping back to the island any time soon, it's easy to get a taste of the Caribbean in your very own garden. Pork and goat are prime candidates for jerking, but I've chosen chicken because if ever a dish needed livening up, it's grilled chicken. Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that this is the only chicken recipe you should bother with on the barbecue – there's not much else to touch it.

The bird

The only thing to note here, apart from a plea to use good chicken that has enough flavour to stand up to this powerful marinade is that you need to leave the bone in for maximum taste and succulence. I like legs, but, as Lucy Pilkington, quoted in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Meat Book, says, a tray of drumsticks and wings works well for a big party where the chicken is going to be eaten by hand.

She advises removing the skin to allow the marinade "to work its way right into the meat", but, as the crisp, salty skin is one of the great joys of jerk as far as I'm concerned, I'm not keen. Much easier to do as US magazine Saveur suggests, and push the marinade right under the skin (although not too generously – I got a bit overenthusiastic and the layer of chilli purée lurking underneath one innocuous-looking thigh nearly blew a volunteer taster's head off).

Wet v dry: there's the rub

In her book Jerk Barbecue from Jamaica, Helen Willinsky says that a dry rub, rather than a marinade, is the "more authentic method of preparing jerk flavouring". Her dry rub contains onion and spring onion, fresh thyme, salt, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, black pepper and scotch bonnet chilli peppers, while the marinade adds soy sauce, oil and vinegar. An article on jerk published in the New York Times explains, somewhat unappetisingly, that the dry rub makes for "a crustier jerk; a wet rub produces juicier meat".

Willinsky's dry rub goes up against the marinades used by Lucy Pilkington, Saveur, and a website called Jamaican Food, and while I don't find that the acidic vinegar or lime juice in the marinades has any discernible tenderising quality, it does impart a pleasing tanginess (I prefer the lime juice to the vinegar in this respect: it tastes fresher).

The soy sauce also penetrates the meat to provide a lovely savoury flavour. (If you, like me, scoff at the idea of soy in a Jamaican marinade, allow me to quote from a post on this very subject on the food forum egullet: "Sorry but Jamaicans sure do use soy sauce, called soya sauce here. As in the States, Chinese laborers were brought in to build the railways. Every little one room grocery store carries it. It is also a main ingredient in 'brown stew chicken and fish' another common offering at restaurants or cookshops that cater to Jamaicans." It may not be an ingredient used by the Maroons, but it does taste damn good.)

Herbs and spices

Jerk ingredients. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

With the matter of lime juice and soy sauce sorted, it's time to consider some of the other ingredients. Spring onions are a common addition – the green tops give a fresher flavour than the yellow onions, shallots and garlic used by many of the recipes. Scotch bonnets are, of course, a must – how many is a personal thing, but I find Lucy's recipe, which uses 2 chillies for 2kg chicken, too mild, and the Saveur recipe, which pops in a generous 8 – 1 for each chicken leg – rather too hot; I can't taste the allspice and the herbs. A robust 3, or a half for each leg, seems about right. Lucy, Jamie Oliver and Saveur also use fresh ginger, which apparently grows wild on the island, but I think the peppers provide all the sweet heat the dish needs: I don't miss it in Helen Willinsky's recipe.

Herb-wise, thyme seems to be the most popular choice: its woody flavour works well with the allspice and the smoke of the charcoal. Jamie's recipe includes a few sprigs of flat leaf parsley and coriander instead, which I can't really detect in the finished dish, and Lucy adds some bay leaves as well, but I'm going to stick to just the one herb, for a cleaner flavour.

Allspice is of course a must: it's the defining flavour of jerk, but it should also be spicy sweet, so the nutmeg and cinnamon in Lucy, Helen and Jamaican Food's recipes is delicious with the brown sugar in the marinade. (Jamie uses honey too, which, but I think it's a shame to miss out on any of the bittersweet, smoky flavour of unrefined sugar.) Plenty of black pepper adds an elusive, tickly note.

Texture-wise, I'm going to make my marinade thicker and chunkier than the Jamaican Food one. Although I love the flavour, if it's too stick under the skin, it needs to have more body.

Little jerk cooking is done in pits these days, thankfully (from my point of view anyway) – huge grills (called barbecues in the UK) are the norm, sometimes made from old oil drums, sometimes simply balanced on bricks over an enormous smoky pile of pimento wood. I, of course, only have my wonky kettle barbecue.

Lucy gives instructions for oven-baking the chicken, but says it's best done on the barbecue – "in which case you cook it, covered, for an hour in the oven before finishing it off ... on the barbecue." She also suggests doing "as they do in Jamaica" and cooking it "on the cooler sides of the barbecue in individual foil parcels ... slashed halfway through cooking to allow the smoky flavours of the charcoal to penetrate".

Jamaican Food sears the chicken on both sides, then moves it to the side of the barbecue and closes the lid for the duration of the cooking time, while Jamie suggests simply cooking it on a medium barbecue for 40–50 minutes. (Note that, as Lucy explains, "what matters is that the meat should be so well cooked that's it's turning dark pink – white meat is frowned upon by Jamaicans!").

Even on what I judge to be a medium barbecue, Jamie's chicken ends up blackened after about half an hour. It's still delicious, but unless you have a large grill, I think it's difficult to keep the heat moderate enough. I prefer the Jamaican Food method – although Lucy's oven-baked chicken finished off on a hot grill is also very good, so I've included an inclement-weather spin on this below in case it's still so damp you can't even face attempting to light the barbecue. (Otherwise, however, it seems like a waste to light a grill and heat the oven.) I don't like the versions cooked in foil parcels: they're very juicy, but lack much charring, and I lose a lot of the skin when I unwrap the chicken.

Jamie suggests adding a few allspice berries to the coals for extra smoke – I wish I could say I can taste the difference, but sadly I can't.

Perfect jerk chicken

Felicity's perfect jerk chicken. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

The New York Times reckons that "jerk is so ingrained in Jamaican cooks that the notion of getting a recipe is entertaining, something like asking a midwesterner for a hamburger recipe". After my jerk trials, I'm inclined to agree that really, however you cook it, jerk chicken cannot be anything other than delicious – even if you're not eating it on the white sands of Boston Bay. Please be very careful when chopping the chillies though: streaming eyes can really spoil a feast. Rubber gloves are advisable.

1. Pound the allspice and the peppercorns in a pestle and mortar to a powder, then add to a food processor along with the cinnamon, nutmeg, thyme, spring onions and chillies. Whizz to a purée, then stir in the sugar, salt, soy sauce and lime juice.

2. Pour the marinade into a bowl then add the chicken and massage it into the meat, making sure you get it underneath the skin. Cover and leave to marinate for at least 6 hours, or overnight.

3. Light a barbecue and allow it to cool to a medium heat – you should be able to hold your hand over the grill for 4 seconds without getting singed. Add the chicken and sear on both sides, then move to the edges of the barbecue, put the lid on the barbecue and cook for about 25 minutes, turning occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through. Alternatively, pre-heat the oven to 180C and then cook the chicken in a roasting tray covered with foil for about an hour, until cooked through. Heat a griddle pan on a high heat, and then sear the legs on both sides until charred and crisp. Serve with rice and peas, roasted sweet potato or cornbread fritters.

How do you make your jerk chicken – or do you prefer pork, fish, or goat? – and what do you serve it with? And which other Caribbean dishes deserve to be better known in this country?

This article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and makes a purchase. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative. The links are powered by Skimlinks. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that Skimlinks cookies will be set. More information.